Sitting in the Cronkite School’s First Amendment Forum is Yuri Artibise, an unimposing figure with a reputation as an urban entrepreneur and one of downtown Phoenix’s leading activists.
He looks normal — striped shirt, canvas shorts, black Converse, a simple watch on his left hand, and a thick wedding band on his finger. From looking at him, you would never guess that this man is one of few responsible for trying to reinvent downtown Phoenix, long stigmatized for being a boring and uninviting nine-to-five city.
But after years of community building, event organizing and feverish blogging about all things related to “Yurbanism,” the man who committed himself to making downtown Phoenix a place worth living is leaving.
Yuri isn’t just leaving the city or even the state. In a few days, he’s leaving the country.
***
Yuri begins to speak, stops himself, and simply says, “I’ll tell you a bit of a story.”
Originally from Canada, Yuri moved here in 2007 to work for ASU. However, in 2009, due to budget cuts, he was laid off. He’s been unemployed ever since, which he admits gave him a lot of time to get involved in the community, but it doesn’t pay the bills. He’s also faced many challenges with work permits and the bad economy. So, on April 29, Yuri and his wife will move to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
“It’s bittersweet,” he said. “I am excited to move on, ‘cause I’ve felt, especially within the last year, that I’ve been in this holding pattern and treading water. And I’ve been doing a lot of stuff here, but I knew my time was limited.”
In his spare time, Yuri has created Jane’s Walk, an event where groups of people take a tour of urban environments and talk about what works and what doesn’t. He’s also helped coordinate events like Park(ing) Day and CenPhoCamp.
And that’s what Yuri likes best about Phoenix — how easy it is to get events started.
Yuri compared Phoenix to a petri dish, a place to test ideas and build from scratch. While he appreciates this quality, he admitted that he wasn’t going to miss everything.
“I’m not going to miss the sprawl and car-centric attitudes,” Yuri said. “I’m not going to miss the hundred and twenty degree monsoons in the summer. While it’s easy to get things started and underway, part of that is that there’s very little going on.”
But what Phoenix is really missing is people.
“The reason why businesses, small and large, aren’t coming downtown is because we don’t have enough people,” Yuri said. “We need to bring people downtown. It’s a Catch-22: People won’t move downtown without businesses and businesses won’t move downtown without people.”
***
Yuri isn’t the only urban advocate to leave the urban desert recently.
Tony Arranaga, a man who used to blog about the light rail, also struggled in Phoenix. Like Yuri, with the bad economy, Arranaga found it difficult to find opportunities for growth in his field. He moved to Los Angeles after being offered a job as spokesperson for city councilman Bill Rosendahl. But he admits that he misses Phoenix.
“Phoenix has a special place in my heart,” Arranaga said. “I miss the people, especially all the friendships I made through social media. I miss the places to eat.”
Arranaga also added that even though Phoenix has had its fair share of troubles, the city is moving in the right direction. He added that Yuri has a lot to do with downtown Phoenix’s progression.
“(Yuri) has done a great job at promoting communities,” Tony said. “He contributed so much to the quality of life in Phoenix and he will definitely be missed.”
Urban and metropolitan studies senior Eddie Jensen knows Yuri well and agreed that he has contributed much to downtown Phoenix.
“What Yuri and others want to do is make downtown Phoenix not a place to go, but a place to be,” Jensen said.
However, the city of Phoenix mainly chooses to support major projects like the recent retail development, CityScape, Jensen said. But in order to help give Phoenix an identity the city needs to focus its efforts on smaller projects and smaller businesses, even if they won’t be as “politically sexy,” he added.
“Downtown advocates are starting to hack against the walls the city has put up,” Jensen said. “We want to chip away at this (big project) mentality. We need to have much more smaller projects adding to the flavor of downtown Phoenix. There’s energy in downtown Phoenix, but it’s in spots.”
Jensen added that the city has a lot of potential, but it just needs to be harnessed. One way students can help downtown Phoenix is to get out and explore the area, Jensen said – a notion Yuri has been urging the university to reinforce for years.
“Yuri feels very strongly that ASU isn’t promoting that,” Jensen said.
***
Yuri engaged people, mobilized activists and could frequently be spotted espousing urban theory to friends at Lux.
And now, he’s leaving.
“He’ll be missed terribly,” Jensen said. “I think he’s got enough people involved to take over and continue his work.”
Yuri is also hopeful that others in the community will step up and continue his projects.
“I know that other people will continue on my stuff,” Yuri said. “But I also hope they bring their own ideas — I don’t want to be replicated. Nothing I’ve done downtown has been a unique idea I’ve come up with on my own. They have all been ideas that I’ve stolen or borrowed from other cities.”
And he will take what he’s learned in Phoenix and contribute to Vancouver, his new home.
“I hope to continue my involvement in the community,” he added. “It will be a different type of involvement. I don’t think I can ever go back to being a passive citizen or resident. That’s one thing I thank Phoenix for is teaching me to be an urban advocate.”
And being an urban advocate in Phoenix, Yuri said, can have a big impact on the community, its business and the city’s future.
“One person can do things. That’s what’s great about Phoenix. You don’t need big budgets, or much time. You just need the idea and willpower.”
Contact the reporter at dmillar@asu.edu
